Joe Girardi didn’t want Mark Teixeira focusing on his postseason numbers or trying to carry the team, and the manager said before the game that his expectations for his slumping first baseman were simply to take “good at-bats” and play well defensively.
Girardi and the Yankees received a boost as their $180 million man delivered his first World Series hit in the fourth inning of last night’s 3-1 Game 2 Yankees win at the Stadium, crushing a mammoth solo homer off Pedro Martinez to tie the game at 1-1.
“I think it was just a high changeup and I wanted to be aggressive off him,” Teixeira said of his first career World Series homer. “I was just trying to look for a strike and swing hard in case I hit it.”
Teixeira, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in Game 1, has struggled this October. He entered last night hitting a paltry .186 in the Yankees’ 10 postseason games. That included 11 strikeouts and two double plays.
Teixeira started off last night by popping out against Martinez in the first inning. But in the fourth, Teixeira blasted a 1-0 pitch into the Yankees bullpen for his second homer of the playoffs.
“We hadn’t done much against Pedro up until that point, and it kind of got us going.”
Girardi said he also thinks the fact that the Yankees are playing more consecutive games now will benefit his first baseman.
“We’re getting in a position where we’re going to start playing a little bit more regularly, and I think that will help him out,” Girardi said before the game. “We’ve had so many days off, and Tex seems to be a rhythm hitter, and playing a couple [of] days in a row, and we’re going to have another day off and then we’re going to play three days in a row. Getting to play, I think, is important.”